Dr. Willie Parker writes in his memoir “Life’s Work”: “I believe that as an abortion provider, I am doing God’s work. I am protecting women’s rights, their human right to decide their futures for themselves, and to live their lives as they see fit.”

What’s different about the Roe anniversary this year is the newly proactive abortion rights movement.

Today, lawmakers from 25 states and 3 localities join together to announce they will introduce legislation to affirmatively protect women’s fundamental right to abortion. This nationwide demonstration of resolve is just the beginning for 2018. Importantly, it’s part of a larger movement-wide effort to take the offense on abortion rights.

In 2016, there were 81 proactive abortion rights measures introduced in 25 states. Last year, that increased to 133 measures in 33 states and four localities. This year, thePublic Leadership Instituteis pushing to increase the number of proactive bills and resolutions to 200 in nearly 40 different states.

Part of the reason for this increase is the distribution of the Public Leadership Institute’sPlaybook for Abortion Rights—the great majority of the policies introduced are similar to model bills published in that book. And part is the energy generated by the Women’s March and subsequent organizing for women’s rights. […]

Many of the bills announced today are similar to the new Delaware law. They would “codify” Roe, meaning they would write the constitutional right to abortion into state statutes. This is because the Supreme Court is just one justice’s death or retirement away from reversing Roe.

“Here’s to the security guards who maybe had a degree in another land. Here’s to the manicurist who had to leave her family to come here, painting the nails, scrubbing the feet of strangers. Here’s to the janitors who don’t understand English yet work hard despite it all. Here’s to the fast food workers who work hard to see their family smile. Here’s to the laundry man at the Marriott who told me with the sparkle in his eyes how he was an engineer in Peru. Here’s to the bus driver, the Turkish Sufi who almost danced when I quoted Rumi. Here’s to the harvesters who live in fear of being deported for coming here to open the road for their future generation. Here’s to the taxi drivers from Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and India who gossip amongst themselves. Here is to them waking up at 4am, calling home to hear the voices of their loved ones. Here is to their children, to the children who despite it all become artists, writers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, activists and rebels. Here’s to international money transfer. For never forgetting home. Here’s to their children who carry the heartbeats of their motherland and even in sleep, speak with pride about their fathers. Keep on.” ~Ijeoma Umebinyuo, Questions for Ada (2015)

The bait and switch here, which has been going on now for years, is GOP politicians saying they support Dreamer protections *in principle* but rejecting every single actual proposal that would do it. Over and over and over.

Wall Street jitters continued at midday after the market opened with a 465-point dive, then began recovering most of that loss in the wake of an emergency rate cut by the Fed from 4.25% to 3.5%—a cut deeper than any since 1984, according toU.S. News & World Report.

“The tepid reaction of investors to the surprise cut may be due to a sense that the Fed senses the economy is in worse shape than it originally thought,” according to USA Today. Imagine that: years of happy talk, denial, deregulation and creating one’s own reality ultimately have consequences. Who’d have thought?